


Hard to Kill

by Rulerofthefakeempire



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Enjoy!, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Married Couple, One Shot, Shenanigans, brief but pretty funny amnesia, inspired by that one video i saw many years ago and now can't remember, pain meds, when you forget your husband but you still think he's hot shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23183554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rulerofthefakeempire/pseuds/Rulerofthefakeempire
Summary: “Wow, Shimada, you look like shi-”Jesse cut him off and Hanzo’s eyes snapped to him, to his mouth curling into a smile, all canines, looking at him with half open eyes.“Well,” he slurred, “ain’t you just the loveliest thing I have ever seen.” Hanzo starred at him as he patted the bed with his one remaining hand. “Come, sit down, darlin’, tell me about yourself.”His eyes flickered to Reyes.“He doesn’t know who I am?”“He doesn’t know who anyone is. It’s the pain meds.”
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 19
Kudos: 400





	Hard to Kill

The door opened and his gaze shot up.

The call had come just before bed, sitting on the couch in his nightclothes, idly looking over the mission report Jesse had sent him, drinking left-over tea, waiting for him to get home, knowing that it would be a few days yet, still noting each hour as it passed, patiently counting them down. And then the call had come and his heart was in his throat in a half second, standing in the middle of their quarters, hands shaking, unable to breath, panic roaring through him, held taunt somewhere between terrified and wrathful, as though he needed to be wrathful, just to get through each second of the terror. 

There were no details, no status updates, just Reyes’ gruff voice in his ear, as though if he’d been able to avoid this conversation, he would have done, “Hey, Shimada, Jess got shot, it’s bad, pretty bad, bringing him home, wait up.” It had taken hours for them to get back, hours and hours of waiting in the med bay, waiting for him to get home. And even then, he’d only caught a glimpse of him, surrounded by beeping machines, nurses, splayed out on a gurney, bloody and pale and nothing like himself, Genji holding him back when he begged to see him, to go with him, touch him and make sure he was still there. 

And then there were the hours once he was back, still no news, waiting, arms around his knees in the corridor, waiting for him to come back, to be back, Jesse McCree, notoriously hard to kill. Hard to kill. That’s what he told himself. Hard to kill. _That man is a cockroach_ , that’s what he told himself, stuck with Jesse’s grin every time he closed his eyes, all canines, shooting him a wink every time he left, _“no force on this earth could keep me from coming back to you, cariño.”_ He wept when he thought of it, too tired to sob, just stuck wiping away the tears as they came, sniffling into his sleeves. He was so terrified all the time, so afraid of all these risks they kept taking, so certain that this time, this time he’d put a stop to it, tell him no more, that they needed to stop doing this to each other, they had to stop doing this to each other.

“Hanzo?” Her voice was soft, but not so soft that he would think anything of it. Not so soft that he’d think he was dead, not so light that he’d think he was fine. “You can come through now.” 

He scrambled up, bag over his shoulder, hair untied, ragged and unrefined as he pushed through the door, following her down the hallway to the room they would have put him in, the roomed they’d all known at one point or another, a kind of resting place, a safe haven. She glanced back at him. 

“We’re through the worst of it now,” she said, as though that meant anything, “but he’s on a lot of pain medication, you should know that.” He’d seen Jesse on ketamine once, it couldn’t be worse than that. 

“Please,” he found himself saying, voice small, “I just want to see him.” He’d never foreseen this for himself, so worried that it made him small instead of loud, as though he was trying to appease a hostage taker, anything just to get him back. 

Angela opened a door for him. 

“As you wish,” she said.

Reyes and Jesse looked up as the door slipped closed behind him. Reyes sat by the bed, beanie in hand, still dressed in his uniform, blood smeared on his cheek, dark circles under his eyes. And Jesse, Jesse was sat up in a mountain of pillows, in his white sheets, far too pale, prosthetic gone, in a hospital gown, bloody and bruised, blinking at him, but breathing, alive, good and alive. And immediately, he wanted to just collapse to the floor and stay there, stomach dropping out of him with relief. Immediately, he wanted nothing but to offer him whatever he could, tell him he was loved in any language he knew, sobbing in to his chest, to squeeze his cheeks and thank him for coming back, knowing that he would not have been far behind if he’d left for good.

Instead, he just slowed, standing in the door way with his bag clutched to his chest, just by being looked at by them, by Reyes, stilled like it was a kind of muscle memory. It had been years since their relationship had been a secret, but the instinct remained in him still, that desire to show nothing, reveal nothing, partners, barely even friends, and all the while he’d been sleeping in Jesse’s bed, learning the silhouettes he made in different lights, tucking his hair behind his ears, and warmer than he’d been in years, unable to breath a word of it aloud. 

Reyes spoke first. 

“Wow, Shimada, you look like shi-”

Jesse cut him off and Hanzo’s eyes snapped to him, to his mouth curling into a smile, all canines, cleaned up but bruised, hair still dirty, a new scar in the making on his forehead, looking at him with half open eyes. 

“Well,” he slurred, “ain’t you just the loveliest thing I have _ever_ seen.” Hanzo starred at him as he patted the bed with his one remaining hand. “Come, sit down, darlin’, tell me about yourself.” 

Hanzo’s eyes flickered over to Reyes who was pinching the bridge of his nose with a look of absolute nausea on his face. 

“He doesn’t know who I am?” 

“He doesn’t know who anyone is. It’s the pain meds.” 

“What are you talking about? I know who he is.” All eyes turned back to Jesse who was still grinning, eyes still half lidded, still slurring. “I mean, with a face like that, he has to be on the screen. I just know it,” he breathed, “it’s on the tip of my tongue.” 

“Jesus _Christ,”_ Reyes spoke as though he was barely keeping himself from smothering Jesse with a pillow and being done with it, hauling himself up with a groan, “That’s it, I’m out, fuck this. Enjoy yourself Shimada.” Hanzo stopped him just as he was about to stomp past him, hand held out. 

“He will recover, yes? Remember me?” 

Reyes scowled at him, dismissive.

“Sure, whatever.” 

Hanzo nodded, eyes drifting back to Jesse, his Jesse, looking at him in that strange way, but still himself, still his Jesse, Jesse back from the dead, and still, his relief couldn’t be deterred, still everything in him still weak and devoted.

Behind him, Reyes left, pulling the door closed as Hanzo all but collapsed into the seat he’d vacated, his relief so heavy and constant in him it was almost a sedative. By the bed, the machines beeping around them, he was able to breath again, knowing that Jesse could be put back together just as long as he kept his heart beating, that he was a man that could be rebuilt from scratch if needed, too hard to kill to stay dead.

He exhaled for the first time in hours, staring at the ceiling, so certain that this time he’d run out of patience, that something inside of him had snapped, that this time he would learn to make demands, fewer risks, the terror lodged in his chest less often, certain that Jesse would give him anything just as long as he asked.

After a second, Jesse leant over to him, as though they were conspirators, and Hanzo spared him a glance.

“Hey, gorgeous? Who was that guy?”

Hanzo gazed at him. 

“Doctor.”

“Ah,” Jesse thought to himself for a moment, settled back on his pillows, “very grumpy man. Should have been a cop.”

Hanzo nodded, heavy with exhaustion but still managing to pull the things he’d brought out of the bag anyway, setting them out on the table as if to establish a history, trying to explain to him that he hadn’t been born in this bed, that he had built things that were still standing, that were waiting for him, trying to offer comfort where he was so unequipped to do so. A silver cigarette case was first, his favourite, his mother’s rosary, the half-shrapnel palm of the second prosthetic, a cup Hanzo had brought him back from Morocco, the first engagement ring, won in a poker game, pissed on bourbon and companionship, giggling at the thought of it.

But Jesse just looked at him, only at him, grinning that stupid grin.

“Honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I gotta ask,” he drawled, Hanzo glancing up at him, “do you know CPR? Cause you just about take my breath away.”

Hanzo stared at him, no idea how to respond, Jesse looking at him all doe eyed and charming, eyelashes a-flutter, no idea who he was.

Even in the beginning, he could remember no pick-up lines, nothing so obvious, so blatant. It was the quietest courtship he’d ever encountered. It had happened as if by accident, a thought experiment in happenstance, as though it was always just a coincidence to find Jesse’s hand on his knee, to end up dancing with him in an elevator, falling over each other on the way up to their hotel room, his spine pressed against the wall, arms winding around him, being kissed and kissing him, laughing, they’d been laughing.

He wondered if this is what it would have been like, if they had been normal people, if Jesse would have leaned over him and told him he was beautiful, right off the bat, no hesitation, no years of looking at him only out of the corner of his eye, just smiling at him, trying to woo him, unknowing of how devoted Hanzo already was, had been for years and years.

“Rest assured, Jesse,” he answered eventually, unable to keep the steady warmth from his voice, “should you start to choke, I will save you.”

Jesse laughed, delirious, blinking slowly at him.

“Sugarplum, you’re a godsend,” he slurred, flirtatious, “just tell me I’m going to be able to take you out for dinner. I just gotta.”

Hanzo laughed, exhaustion heavy in every bone.

“Well, I have some excellent news for you then, my love,” he said as he leant back in his chair, “We are already going out to dinner. Every second Thursday for the past four years.”

“Oh?” Jesse answered, encouraging of every welcome fact, “well, that’s a relief. I must be such a lucky fella to go out with you so often.”

“Very lucky,” Hanzo confirmed, voice lowered to a hum, leaning down on his fist to gaze at him, “but I am very lucky myself. For you see, several years ago, I married you, and now when you die, I’ll get all your stuff.”

Jesse nodded very seriously, taking this in, sunk into his pillows, eyes barely keeping themselves open.

“I’ll try to make sure to only have the best stuff then,” he said, thoughtfully scratching at his beard, tubes and wires dangling, “No junk. No junk for beautiful men, no sir.”

Hanzo gazed at him, full of adoration, of relief, of whatever the absence of adrenaline brought out in him, soft and weak and hopeless.

“I love you very much Jesse, I’m very glad you’re not dead yet.”

Jesse slowly blinked at him from his pillows and smiled.

“I love you too, I think. Pretty sure.”

“Good, because we’re retiring tomorrow.”

Jesse’s head tipped back, as though he hadn’t heard, eyes slipping closed. 

“That’s cool, beautiful,” he murmured, “whatever works.”

Jesse passed out a couple of seconds later and he was left in the human silence, determined to carve out the terror from his chest, to scrape the distrust from under his fingernails by any means necessary, leaning forward to brush his hair away from his eyes, kiss his forehead, determined to risk precious things less, let someone else have a go in combat.

**Author's Note:**

> This came in to being because I kept seeing all of these amnesia fics and it being all angsty and sad because one person'd got all of this love built up and the other has none, but I kept thinking that I think love remains, even when you have no memories of a person to attach it to. Like muscle memory, some cognitive pathway that knows how this goes and skips ahead, producing the same chemical response even if it has no physical reason to, you just pavlov's dog your own brain. 
> 
> And thats quite a romantic idea and I wanted to be cool and romantic about it but I'm in the middle of a much larger writing project so I figured I'd try to be funny instead. Hope you enjoyed :))


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